," said Venner, curtly.

"Yet a man after a new love does not shrink from lying to an old,"
retorted Cervera.

"Pshaw! You are jealous again."

"A woman who loves as I love is always jealous."

"Of whom now?"

"You know of whom."

"I tell you I have not seen Violet Page since the theater closed."

"I have only your word for it," repeated Cervera, with incredulity
bright in her sensuous eyes. "You know what I told you, Rufe. I'll not
tamely permit that pale-faced nightingale to come between you and me.
You know what I told you. I would kill her as I would a--a snake!"

Despite his own stiff nerves, Venner recoiled from the look on the
woman's desperate face. Her voice had fallen to a hiss like that of the
reptile mentioned.

"You are mad, Sanetta," he cried, irritably. "You have no occasion for
this jealousy and hatred."

"I have had! You know that I have had--and your face shows it!"

"You have none now--absolutely none now!"

His emphatic declaration fell upon Cervera with an effect which Venner
did not at first understand.

She sprang quickly toward him, gripping him hard by the wrist, while her
every nerve seemed stimulated with sudden agitation.

"None now? None now--now?" she fiercely reiterated, in inquiring
whispers. "Do you mean that--that it is done? that it is done?"

"Done?" gasped Venner, amazedly. "Is what done? What the devil are you
driving at?"

She drew back, searching his eyes with hers, and hers were like those of
a demon, in her momentary suspense.

"Then it isn't--it isn't?" she hissed, through her white teeth. "I
thought from what you said that it was. I thought--"

"Good God! what do you mean?" cried Venner, aghast for a moment.

Then, struck with a sudden recollection, he turned and snatched an
evening paper from a pocket of his coat, which he had tossed on a chair.
He had recalled certain leader lines which had caught his eye earlier in
the evening, yet which he then had not had sufficient interest to
follow.

Now he hurriedly opened the paper and read the story, or so much of it
as enabled him to guess the truth.

It was the newspaper story of the girl found dead in Central Park that
afternoon, with the mystery involving the sudden fatality, and the names
of the murdered girl and her mistress, Violet Page.

A half-smothered oath of horror and dismay broke from Venner, after a
moment.

It brought Cervera to his side, and she snatched the paper from him and
read--th